


One More Time

by inlovewithnight



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 02:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1248979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt "Gabe/Erin - Under all her PR, Erin is secretly a lot like Pete, and that's part of what attracts Gabe to her."</p>
            </blockquote>





	One More Time

Erin definitely didn't make him think of Pete when he met her. Pretty much the opposite.

At first glance she was a whole lot like Bianca; white-blonde instead of honey, ice princess instead of heat. But the precision, the sense of knife-edge rules--that was the same.

And he wanted that, then, he wanted B back, or at least the feeling that someone would call him out on shit and knock him on his ass if he made her mad. He needed that. That was how relationships worked.

Then he got to know her. And it turned out Pete wasn't the only person who made him want to be better just by acting like they liked what they already saw.

**

She's in the kitchen making cocoa. She's wearing white cashmere to make cocoa. It's impractical and stupid and that never occurs to her at all; she likes white cashmere, she is in possession of white cashmere, she is going to wear it, that's that.

That's not what got his attention, though. She's doing voices for the dogs.

"But Mommy," she says in the piping little voice she uses for Tulipan, "where is my cocoa? Put it in a little bowl, I will drink so much!"

She taps her spoon against the sink and switches to Koala's French accent. "Tulipan, you know better, maman does not give us le chocolat!"

"But Koala, I am so very thirsty, what will I do!"

Gabe's chest and his head feel so warm. It's like he's exploding with love or light or something else he isn't supposed to have.

**

"You know it doesn't have to feel like this," Pete told him once, on that last tour together, when Gabe was on his knees puking up tequila and sobbing raggedly about whatever B had said. "That's what they tell me, it doesn't have to feel like this. And you deserve better."

“I don’t. I really don’t.”

“Well, I think you do.” Pete held out his hands, and Gabe let him pull him up. “I’m an expert on bullshit, and I’m telling you.”

**

On their second date, he decides he needs to be up-front and honest. He tells her about everything: Bianca, drugs, the desert, South America, the time he shoplifted a Walkman when he was sixteen, all of it. He lays it all out.

She frowns at him a little over her coffee cup. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“I want you to know everything right off the bat.”

“Why?”

“So you can decide _not_ to like me.”

She puts her cup down and folds her hands in her lap. “Well, I don’t have great stories like that, I guess? But I’m cold and pretentious. I’ve seen every single episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. I cry at old movies. And I can’t eat cilantro.”

He blinks. “Why…”

“Those are plenty of reasons for you not to like _me_.”

“I don’t care about any of those.”

She raises an eyebrow for a moment, then smiles. “So we don’t have a problem.”

**

He goes around and around in circles, trying to figure out what she _does_ like about him. What does he possibly have to offer her?

“You’re funny,” Pete tells him, his voice thick and sleepy over the phone. He’s three thousand miles away, but he’s there if Gabe needs him. That’s kind of a big thing. “And you’re loyal. And you’re, like, warm and supportive and generous and shit. Dude. You’re everything anybody wants in a partner.”

“Then why has it taken me this long to find somebody?”

“Because you’re also a stubborn shit and kinda dumb and you don’t like letting people be nice to you?”

Gabe shuts his mouth with a click. “Wow.”

“Hard truths at 3 AM, brother.” Pete yawns. “You should definitely keep dating Erin, though. She tricks you into letting her be nice to you anyway.”

“She’s as good at it as you are.”

“Then keep dating her for sure. Major endorsement.”

Gabe’s pretty sure Pete doesn’t realize that he’s not kidding, but that’s okay. Gabe knows.

**

It’s different when they’re in public, when she’s got her work face on. PR is important to her. She’s a brand. She’s always gotta be selling if there are cameras around; that’s how her industry works. His is about selling a persona that people can relate to, flaws and all. Hers is about selling something they _aspire_ to. Flawless is a requirement.

It takes him a long time to really get that, how she puts the ice princess on and puts the dog-cuddling, reality-TV-loving woman away. She doesn’t put up a part of herself like he does; she puts on _armor_.

He likes having his picture taken with the princess. He’s as into fairy tales as anybody. But he _really_ likes going home with the girl who calls him a prince even when he’s being a jackass.

***  
"Gabe," Erin whispers. "Gabe."

"Hmmph," he mumbles, trying to hold on to the half-edge of sleep. He’s so close to falling asleep. So close. Dammit.

"Are you asleep?"

He sighs and rolls to face her, blinking to clear his eyes. "'M up now."

She bites her lower lip and stares up at him, pale in the dark.

"What's wrong?" he asks after a minute. "You okay?"

She scrunches her face apologetically, but her eyes are too bright for her to mean it. She looks like she's about to start giggling any second.

"Will you do the thing?" she whispers.

"Oh my god, Erin."

"Please?"

"I was asleep!"

"Just once!"

He rubs at his eyes and looks up at the ceiling for a minute. It's hard to deliberately do the thing when he was about to fall asleep.

He looks at her again, putting on the blank, flat-eyed mask he created to keep people off his back in high school and perfected for Midtown photoshoots and videos because it made him look hardcore. The one that made his dad send him to a counselor because he was concerned. The one Bianca called his cold, dead-eyed serial killer face.

The one that makes Erin scream with laughter and roll over onto her stomach, clutching her pillow to her face. "I love it, I love it, oh my god, Gabe, do it again."

"No. You said once. I'm going back to sleep."

"If you do it again I'll do something nice for you."

She says it all singsong and teasing. Promising in a silly way. He never thought he would be so into silly turning into sexy, instead of shouting turning into sexy. He'd thought that was the way it was supposed to work.

He loves this woman. Even if she won't let him sleep.

**

What should’ve been the biggest hint, and the part that never fails to make him grin, is that their Starbucks orders are the same. Sugar with a little coffee in it, and plenty of vanilla syrup.

“I forget who I’m buying for half the time,” he tells Pete on the phone while he waits at the end of the counter for his order. “Where am I? What’s going on? What year is it? Oh, there are the dogs, I’m good now.”

“The dogs and a twenty-pound ring on your finger.”

“Keeps me grounded.” Gabe takes his drinks from the barista and nods thank-you. “I swear, how do you guys drink this shit?”

“It’s good. Don’t hate the sweetness, dude.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll tell you what.” Gabe has to stop on the sidewalk to giggle. “It makes her taste like you, only sweeter.”

Pete laughs out loud. “Oh my god. I’m hanging up on you. You suck.”

Gabe grins all the way home. He knows when he gets there he’ll repeat the joke to Erin, and she’ll laugh, too.  



End file.
